


The Professional

by JSevick



Series: The Alias Complex [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Protective Oliver, TW: sexual harassment, but just in case, missions on comms, more plot than fluff, not enough for an archive warning, only chapter 2 is explicit, plot shamelessly stolen from alias, trying something different so we'll see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-17 13:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4667711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSevick/pseuds/JSevick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity's out in the field, and Oliver's out of his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This idea comes directly out of Alias episode 2x13 "Phase One" (modified because Felicity Smoak and Sydney Bristow, while both awesome, have different skill sets)--though I realized after I had the idea that it uses some familiar fandom tropes that makes it additionally unoriginal. But the idea stuck with me anyway, and I decided to go for it. I'm not in love with how it turned out, but there's enough here that I thought it was worth sharing anyway. :) 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

“ _Absolutely_ _not_.”

“Oliver, just listen, please.”

“ _No_ ,” he says, and his voice has gone soft and flat in the tone that is meant to end the conversation. When he yells, Felicity can stand up and crowd into his personal space as he looms over her, until the heated words just leave heat behind to scorch them both. This tone tells her that it’s not one of those fights—push him, and they’ll be storming out in separate directions, cold and tense, not stumbling towards the nearest flat surface.

“Oliver,” Diggle says, trying to intervene as the voice of reason. “You know I don’t love this idea, but if we can get the jump on the Alliance now, we can get out ahead of whatever they’ve got planned.”

“From what I’ve been able—or rather, not able—to gather from their surface accounts, this server will have _everything_ ,” Felicity says, looking away from Oliver’s dark glare and tense jaw, instead spinning back towards her monitors. “Real estate holdings, bank accounts, _member registries_ —let alone schematics and plans that might tell us what they’re doing here. If we don’t take this chance, we’ll be chasing down this information in trickles for months. Or, you know, _I_ will, and then you’ll get growly when I’m not fast enough.”

“This would be huge, Ollie,” Laurel says. When his gaze turns on her, she gentles her tone and looks torn between flinching and rolling her eyes—the two ways to react to Oliver when he’s like this. “We could end this fight before they make a single move. Every other battle we’ve faced… what would you have given to end it before losing anyone?”

He sighs, arms crossed tightly across his chest, veins pulsing. “I don’t disagree that the server would be valuable,” he says. Then he looks right at Felicity. “But _not_ like this.”

Diggle runs a hand over his chin. “I’ve looked at the surveillance and blueprints a dozen times, man—this place is a fortress. Even with the entire SCPD, we wouldn’t have enough manpower. Hell, explosives wouldn’t even do the trick. I hate to say it but this is the only way.”

“It’s just like Merlyn Global,” Felicity says, and Oliver pushes off the edge of the table he’d been leaning on, so hard that the table quakes on its legs and nearly upsets the fern sitting there. Only his hand snapping out to grab it saves it from shattering on the floor, but any affection Felicity might read into the gesture is diminished by the way he slams the pot down on the silver surface.

“It is _nothing_ like Merlyn Global.”

“You can’t talk anyone else through it, Felicity?” Thea asks, quietly, though it still makes Oliver twist abruptly towards her looking like he’s been surrounded.

He points at her. “You’re not doing this either,” he growls.

“I have no idea how advanced their system is going to be until I see it,” Felicity answers, as everyone ignores Oliver pacing beside the racks of arrows. “And time will be limited; we can’t waste time trying to explain things to each other.”

“You’re _sure_ there’s no other option?” Diggle asks, sparing a glance for Oliver, whose hands are twitching at his side. “What about food delivery? Maintenance? Housekeeping?”

“Nothing fast enough,” she says as she pulls up surveillance footage to gesture to while she explains. “The Alliance server is located in a single room, a personal residence for a high-ranking member whose sole job is guarding it. As you said, the surrounding facility is some of the most intense security we’ve seen—getting to it by force will only end with death and the destruction of the server. And _no one_ is allowed in, other than guards who’ve been vetted for years. All staff is the same; no way anyone undercover could earn their trust in a reasonable time frame.

“The _only_ non-vetted personnel allowed in, to bribe that high-ranking member into staying, are high-end escorts,” she says, pointing at a website with an array of suggestive photos. “The agency has been vetted, but I can hack their system and upload credentials, easy.”

“And you’re up to that?” Diggle asks. “ _Really_?”

“I grew up in Vegas—I’ve met my share of escorts,” she says, proudly, and Thea chokes on the water she’d been drinking. “I mean, not _met_ met, you know, they just came into the casino bar sometimes. And my mom—not that she’s an escort, she just dresses like one. I should ask her where she shops.”  

“You don’t need to ask her, because you. Are. Not. Going.” Oliver speaks tightly through his teeth, before turning abruptly to stalk over to the training mats. Felicity can tell he needs to punch things, and makes a mental note to order new training dummies since the ones they have are not long for this world.

“We may not all be throwing a hissy fit, but he’s not wrong to be concerned, Felicity,” Laurel says. “These guys are obviously dangerous, and pretending to be an escort…”

“I’ve got this instant knockout gas from S.T.A.R. Labs that I’ve put in a perfume bottle—once we’re alone, I knock him out, and he won’t remember anything but blurry memories,” she says, solemnly. She knows this plan is out there; she’s not exactly eager to play a prostitute to an international supervillain. But this could be their one chance—and sometimes she wants to do more for the team than sit back in the lair, hearing them risk their lives and waiting for the day someone dies on her comms.

“Besides,” she adds, “by the time they even try to track down the mysterious escort who is suddenly gone from the agency’s website, we’ll have taken them down.”

“There’s just… a lot of ways this could go bad, with us stuck outside unable to get to you,” Diggle says, and he jerks his chin towards the sounds of grunts and breaking wood in the training corner. “You know he doesn’t handle that well.”

“I know,” Felicity says softly, equal parts exasperated and affectionate. “Let me talk to him. If we can think of another way to get me in there, I’ll listen—but I think this can work.”

The others nod, various expressions of concern or calculating thought on their faces, and after a while they all leave—with Oliver still sweating it out, the clanging of the salmon ladder echoing through the lair. Enough time has passed, she thinks, so Felicity makes her way towards him, the click of her heels adding a second beat to the rhythm.

After a moment, he drops down to the floor, broad back bare and shiny with sweat, shoulders heaving with his deep breaths. He doesn’t turn towards her, and she pauses on the edge of the mat.

“While you’ve been reaffirming your manliness, and, um, perspiring and grunting and thoroughly distracting me, I’ve been thinking about how to start this,” she begins, keeping her voice soft as though he’s a wild animal about to snap. “I could mention how many times you rush out into danger, even certain death—but all the, you know, perspiring and grunting and muscles makes you a little better equipped, I guess.”

She takes a step forward, as his head bows forward with a sigh. “I could tell you that if this is some kind of jealousy, it’s absolutely crazy because if you think I’d leave all of… _that_ ,” she says with a gesture at his back, “for some gross old pervert criminal, then I’d say you’ve been hit in the head too many times. Not that I’m just in it for _that_ , of course I love you for so much more, but _that’s_ definitely part of it…”

When he rolls his shoulders, maybe releasing tension and maybe just showing off, she trails off and then tries to find her focus again. “I could say that if this is some sort of property value crap, like if another man looks at me or touches me I’m tarnished, then this conversation is definitely going another way and you better get used to that cot in the corner.”

Now he grabs the back of his neck with one hand, turning to look at her over his shoulder, and his tense expression doesn’t reveal much other than continued turmoil. But she can tell he doesn’t want the conversation to go another way, and she’s inwardly pleased that she’s got that much power over this grumpy giant.

“So what it must be is protectiveness, concern for my wellbeing,” she says, and she walks towards those piercing blue eyes beneath furrowed brows, twisting her hands together in front of her. “And that I get, Oliver. These are dangerous people, and I’d be walking into a fortress all alone… and despite what you might think, I’m not so desperate to prove myself that I want to take stupid risks. It’s just… I think this might be worth it. And we both know you’ve done some extreme things when you thought it was worth it.”

“Felicity,” he says, and his voice is so distraught and she’s so close that she instinctively reaches out towards him, but stops at the last minute. He turns fully towards her, and she can see the uncomfortable shuffle beneath the he-man exterior. God, she loves this ridiculous, impossible man.

“We’ll do it all your way,” she says hurriedly. “I’ve even rigged earrings with video as well as audio—unless that would be too much, maybe Digg could monitor it. But I’ve watched the footage a hundred times; the girls go in, they’re not there long, and then they leave unharmed. I mean, other than having to, you know, but people end up in lifestyles for all different reasons so I’m not judging or anything.”

“I don’t want you to think I don’t believe in you,” he says. “I just… can’t stop thinking of you in there and me unable to do _anything_.”

“Like me sitting in the lair, listening to you fight over the comms?” When he just sighs, she relents. “Okay, I know it’s different, but I can do this. I really think I need to do this. That _we_ need this.”

His hands come up to cradle her head, pulling her into the shelter of his arms, and he presses his forehead against hers. He smells like sweat and the last remnants of his subtle body spray, and as his nose slides against hers, she closes her eyes.

“Do you feel like this when I’m out there?” he asks in a harsh whisper.

“Sometimes, like when you don’t _answer me_.” Her hands drift up to the cool dampness of his waist, playfully pinching at one of his scars. He squirms a little, pulling her in until she’s flush against him, and she doesn’t care about the sweat that starts to wet her shirt; it’s one of the very few downsides of dating Oliver. “And about a dozen times last year—there was that certain drugging incident that I never properly apologized for.”

He kisses her, nipping at her bottom lip and drawing her in as though he can inhale this dangerous impulse along with her soul.

“No apologies, remember,” he says, lips never leaving hers as he breathes the words into her mouth.

“So…?” It’s almost a whimper against his jaw, her hands working up the muscles between his shoulder blades.

The breath he expels is hot across her cheek. “We’re going to plan this down to the second, and we need at least two extraction plans, and I’m going to be on the comms with you the whole time—even if you have to sneeze, Felicity, you leave your comm on.”

“Even if I have to, you know…?” she says, as he pulls back to frown at her. “Act like a prostitute. I mean, just a little, at the beginning.”

He grimaces, as his hands slide down to frame her shoulders. “I don’t love that, no. But as you pointed out, if you’re not being hurt, I don’t have much room to complain. Unless I want to hear your loud voice.”

“You don’t want to hear my loud voice,” she says, smirking as she shakes her head.

His hands slip down her back to tug her hips against his, bending down to press a kiss against her throat. “There’s a much more pleasant way to make you scream.”

She knows the hands gripping tighter on her hips, the urgency of his lips and scrape of his stubble leaving red marks on her skin, the way he lifts her up against him so her shoes clatter to the mat—it’s his way of declaring to the world and to her and to himself, “ _mine_.”

With every touch she returns, her nails digging into her back, her knees curling up to clench around his waist, she tells him, “ _yours_ … _and you’re mine.”_

Because if they’re going to get through this, it will be together.

XXXXXXX

“Should I be offended that she’s wearing one of my dresses for this?” Thea asks, as Felicity tugs at the hem of the sparkly silver dress threatening to ride up her ass. She’s not opposed to a short skirt, but this thing is ridiculous.

And the overflow of cleavage rising above the strapless dress just completes the picture.

“Maybe it’s a sign you should rethink your wardrobe,” Oliver grumbles. His hand rests on Felicity’s knee from where he sits beside her in the limo. The others, further into the stretched backseat, are setting up the monitors, as Digg pulls up in front of the building.

“I _know_ you are not about to judge my fashion choices, Mr. One Gray T-shirt.”

“I like that t-shirt,” Felicity says softly, and Oliver’s hand tightens on her knee. He’d been quieter than normal, clingy even for him, but with a few (admittedly dubious) extraction plans in place, he had calmed. Soon, this would be over.

“You ready for this?” Diggle asks, the partition sliding down as he looks back from the driver’s seat. “Only Felicity can be seen getting out of the car, then we pull around the block.”

“The earrings are broadcasting fine,” Laurel says from where she sits at the monitors, an image of the limo interior from the angle of Felicity’s ears showing on screen. A few curls of blonde hair obscure the vision.

Felicity slowly peels Oliver’s hand from her knee, feeling it spasm tightly around her fingers as he clutches at her, and she would kiss him passionately if it weren’t for his sister and ex-girlfriend sitting a foot away—and the painstakingly applied makeup he would smear.

“This will be quick and easy, I promise,” she says softly to him, reaching out a hand to stroke over his jaw, where she can feel his teeth clenching beneath the stubble. The thick scent of her perfume must be overwhelming him as he presses a kiss against the inside of her wrist. “And anything I have to say in there, you know-”

He frowns, shaking his head, eyes intent on hers. “Of course I know, Felicity. You do and say whatever you have to so you can come back safe.”

“You don’t have to watch,” she murmurs, and she’s not sure if she’s asking for him or for herself.

“You know I do,” he replies, and his thumb sweeps over the back of her hand as he pulls it away from his face, and then with a pained look he says, “Go.”

Diggle has come around to open the back door of the limo on Felicity’s side, and with a last squeeze of Oliver’s hand, she steps out onto precarious heels and into the yellow glow of the streetlight in front of a dark warehouse. It is always a warehouse.

“You know the code phrases, right?” he asks her, as he closes the door behind her.

Felicity shifts the dress into place so it’s the right mix of trashy and classy, and holds the clutch purse with the fake perfume and her transmitting tools beneath her armpit. “Yes, I do. Anything with the word ‘soldier.’” She will have to use all of her unfortunately limited filter to prevent accidentally saying the word soldier in one of her rambles.

Oh, God, she’s going to have to not ramble. What was she thinking when she came up with this plan?

“Be safe,” he says, and she can tell he wants to reach out to her but he won’t, not with the outside guards watching them carefully.

With a flip of her blonde hair and a deep breath, Felicity strides forward towards the metal doors, as the guards in their Kevlar vests nudge each other and mutter excitedly. The strappy heels halfway up her calves give her a little boost of confidence as well as a swagger in her hips, their pounding on the pavement matching the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears. She reaches the door just as the limo pulls away, and it takes everything in her not to flinch or look back.

“Doing great, Felicity,” Laurel says in her ear, and Thea makes an “mmhmm” sound in agreement, and she feels much less alone.

“Hey, sweetheart, how’s it goin’?” the guard at the door says. “Let’s take a look in that bag.”

Felicity hands it over, wondering if a giggle would be too much, and settling for a flirty, “Sure thing, hot stuff.”

Thea snorts in her ear, while Oliver releases a breath that’s full of all sorts of things, amusement and pained exasperation among them. Laurel just sighs and says, “We’re doomed.”

Okay, so she’ll dial it back a bit. Maybe she’s one of those cool and collected escorts.

The guard shifts through the perfume bottle, the breath mints, the cell phone, and the transmitter she disguised as a vibrator, though he raises his eyebrows at that. Finally, though, he hands back her bag.

“So, what’s a group rate for a cute little thing like you?” he asks, and the guys around him chuckle and leer.

“More than you could afford on a guard salary, I’m afraid,” she says. “I mean, even if you pool your money, it’s just that expensive; I don’t do a lot of-”

“Felicity,” Oliver says sharply in her ear.

“—guards,” she says, cutting off abruptly, though she’d intended to say, “group activities.” With a little breath to combat the rising heat in her cheeks, she says, “Sorry, fellas.”

“Gives me something to aspire to, then,” the guard says, with an attempt at a charming smile that might have worked if he wasn’t guarding an international criminal while hitting on his prostitute, and he opens the door to let her inside. “Tom will take you back.”

“Thanks,” she says, and it comes out breathily not on purpose but from nerves, as a tall, silent type leads her down the narrow hall.

“Geez, that place is a fortress,” Thea says, as the monitors are no doubt showing them the numerous guards holding machine guns, the cameras every few feet, and the thick concrete walls and steel doors.

“Ssh,” Laurel hisses, and Felicity isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be for her benefit or Oliver’s, who has gone back to silence. But she can almost _feel_ him with her, watching and listening. It’s not quite as safe as the warm hollow within his arms, with her nose tucked under his chin or her cheek resting beneath his collarbone, but it’s enough to keep her walking proudly through the lecherous glances.

Finally, they reach the door at the end of the hall, in the center of the building, and it opens after extensive codes and scans for fingerprints and retina and voice and probably even blood from Tom. Beyond the door of thick interlocking mechanisms is a cozy little room, with a large bed and a flat screen TV, cream walls made dim by warm lighting and no windows.

The man lounging in the corner chair, eating shrimp—Bob Mack, which has to be an alias, because really?—is older, maybe sixty, with a large belly and aviator-style glasses and a bad comb-over of salt-and-pepper hair. His face is wrinkled and pitted with old acne scars, but his eyes are sharp and beady as they slide over her from head to toe.

“Ugh, gross,” Thea says in her ear.

“Not helping,” Oliver says, voice taut.

Felicity wants so badly to comfort him, but she has to focus on looking not-nervous and at least somewhat “professionally” interested.

“This one alright?” Tom asks, and she realizes he’s talking to Bob—about _her_.

Bob’s eyes scan her slowly, his mouth open as he chews another cocktail shrimp, and Felicity finds herself fidgeting and trying to turn it into a flirtatious primping. She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, realizing that the gesture was visible on the earring-camera, because she hears Oliver’s growl and Thea’s, “What a pig!” and Laurel’s, “It’s okay, Felicity, you’re doing great,” in a gentling tone.  

“Not bad,” he finally says in a grunt. “A little cutesy, maybe, and not as much up top as I like. But we’ll see what she can do with it.”

“When you spray him, make it right in the eye,” Thea mutters.

“Leave us,” Bob adds, and Felicity hears the door slamming closed behind her, the electromagnetic locks sliding into place with a disturbing clang.

She listens carefully, but hears nothing of the guard’s footsteps in the hall beyond, nor any of the machinery beyond the edge of the door.

“Soundproof,” she says with a relieved sigh, because she hadn’t been looking forward to making noises after knocking him out, and then notices Bob watching her. With a toss of her hair, she says in a breathy tone, “Because I plan on making you scream. You know, in a good way. With all the good stuff I’m going to…”

She’s already rummaging through her clutch for the perfume as she walks closer to him—but before she has the bottle in hand, he is tugging her into his lap, thick hands pawing at her waist.

“No, little doll,” he says in a raspy tone, “I think I will be making _you_ scream.”

“Careful with the merchandise, mister,” she says, sharply, but he’s too busy burying his nose into her cleavage and grasping clumsily at her backside to notice anything she’s saying. She hears Oliver’s intake of breath, and can even hear Digg’s calming words in the background.

Bob’s hands have spilled the clutch from her grip, the contents falling onto the dark red carpet, and Felicity feels a pang of desperation. This was supposed to be over by now.

When his fingers manage to find the zipper at the back of the dress, she squirms violently against him, but he chuckles against the upper curve of her left breast and takes this as eagerness. Her hands braced against his shoulders have no effect, and it’s the first time she sees how wrong this could go.

“The point on his neck, like I showed you,” Oliver says, voice hurried and low. “Pinch and hold.”

“Not yet,” she says, out loud because it works for both, because she’s not ready to abandon the knockout drug that should remove all memory of her face. “Um, come on, baby, slow down… don’t you want a show?”

“Show?” Bob says leisurely, lifting his mouth with a wet smack from her chest. She can only hope he didn’t leave a mark. For all that she scolded Oliver about possessiveness, she feels just as strongly that her body is his and _only his._

“Oh, yeah…” She takes the chance to crawl off his lap, purposefully not looking down at his loose gray sweatpants, as those grabby hands fall to the arms of the chair. The zipper is halfway down her back, making the top of her dress gape around her chest, and she holds it there with one hand. “I promise you’ll like it.”

“I thought you might have something special to justify that price,” Bob says with a smirk, and Felicity really wants to stab her high heel through his eye.

“I’m going to fucking kill this guy.” Oliver’s voice is gravel.

“Are you seriously upset that your girlfriend isn’t a more convincing prostitute?” Thea asks.

“There’s no way to answer that,” Laurel adds, and Oliver just grunts with frustration.

“Just let me get my supplies so I can show you a good time,” Felicity says, ignoring them all as she bends over to reach for the perfume on the floor. But she can’t help emitting a startled, “Oh!” as his hands grab her hips and push her dress up over her ass, revealing the thong she wore just in case. She keeps her head facing forward, the earrings pointed toward the floor and the bed, hoping they’re not picking up the sounds of his excited breathing and, “Oh, yeah,” as he sticks his face where it definitely doesn’t belong. Her underwear is still on, and it’s the only thing keeping her in place as she hastily grabs the perfume.

“Felicity, _what is he doing_?” She can hear a clatter as Oliver probably throws something in the limo, with the others trying to calm him down.

But she can’t worry about Oliver right now. She’s got the perfume in hand, and she spins rapidly to pull away from Bob, and sprays him right in the eyes.

“Bitch!” he shouts, startled by the burn, maybe even thinking it’s just perfume for a moment as he shoves her violently away. Yet by the time Felicity tumbles to the floor, he’s collapsed onto the carpet. Which may be a problem later, but all she can feel right now is relief.

“Are you okay?” the others ask in her ear, and Felicity nods, hurrying to fix her dress since she may have just flashed everyone in the limo with her legs flailing in the air as she fell.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay,” she says, and she’s already moving towards the terminal on the wall, grabbing the transmitter off the floor. “Desperately need a shower, of course—no, a bath, with one of those bath bombs and lots of bubbles.”

“I’m sure Ollie would buy you an entire Lush store—if he still had money,” Thea says. “Or you can buy one for yourself, now.”

“I’ll settle for a single bomb and a tub with jets.” Felicity is already into the system, transmitting data to the lair, finding everything they’d hoped for and more. She felt another wave of relief that after all this, it was worth it. She was even a bit disappointed when she’d scoured their system and uploaded all of it in only a couple of minutes.

“Okay, all done,” she says with a deep breath. She turns to look down at Bob’s sprawled form.

“Get out of there,” Oliver says, in a tone of voice that makes her want to hold his hand.

“I can’t, not yet—my story is that I tired him out, and it’s only been a few minutes. I’m good but I’m not that good,” Felicity says as she repacks her clutch.

Thea groans. “Ollie, stop making that face immediately.”

“How am I supposed to move him onto the bed?” Felicity stares down in dismay at his heavy, swollen form, limbs thrown in every direction, glasses askew. At least he was making wheezing noises with every breath and snore, so the guard wouldn’t need to check his pulse.

“Make a shape with the pillows on the bed, and hide him,” Laurel suggests.

It seems like the only real option; having him sprawled out asleep on the floor or against the chair would be just too suspicious. So she busies herself tucking the fluffiest pillows into a column on the bed, and rolling his body towards the edge of the bed so she can cover it with the duvet and throw pillows like they’d been tossed there haphazardly in the… frenzy. And the sounds of his snores rise from the pile, so when she dims some of the lights and squints, she can believe it’s him on the bed sleeping it off.

“Does it look okay?” she asks.

“Yes,” Oliver says. “Now, _get out_.”

“Okay,” she says, because she does not want to argue with that. And the desperate tone in his voice, that has been there for hours now, is something she wants to smooth away with her fingers through his hair and a kiss on his cheek, which she can’t do from in here.

Trying not to tremble, she presses the call button beside the door, and after a moment it opens.

“Sssh,” she says, giggling softly as she holds a finger over her lips, standing in the door so Tom can’t step past. “He’s resting.”

As if on cue, Bob snorts and she can hear him shifting in the pile on the floor, but the lights are dim enough that Tom just squints towards the bed and then nods. He lets her slip through the door, and closes it behind her, and she can breathe again.

God, this worked. This actually worked. Her flirty smile as she strides down the hallway is less forced than it was before, and she lifts her chin to toss her disheveled blonde curls.

But just before they reach the outer door, Tom grabs her arm, hard. Felicity jerks to a stop, hears Oliver swearing in her ear, and tries not to overreact.

“Must’ve really been something special,” Tom says, pulling her close. “Maybe we’ve all earned a try.” She looks over and sees several other guards sauntering towards them.

“That’s it, we’re going,” Oliver is saying, and the others are arguing with him, and Felicity’s mind races. She’s so close to the door.

“Sorry, fellas.” She’s repeating herself, struggling to keep her tone light and steady, but an idea occurs to her and she decides to run with it. “But I’m booked for the night—and my next client is a Bratva Captain. Leave one mark on me, and he’ll burn this place to the ground.”

Tom’s hand loosens from her arm, and the comm in her ear goes silent.

“I guess you’ll have to talk to your boss—maybe for your year-end bonus or something,” she says, smiling as she opens the door and steps out into the cold night air, past the guards waiting there to watch her walk down the sidewalk.

The limo idling at the curb is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, and she nearly runs to it as Digg steps out to open the car door, fixing her with his steady gaze and nodding.

She practically falls inside, tumbling into Oliver’s arms, and they’re driving away and several miles distant before she pulls her face from the shelter of his neck.

“You did awesome, Felicity,” Thea says. “We got _everything_.”

“This is more than enough to take legal action,” Laurel says as she scrolls through the data. “I think we can even go Federal with this—they’re done.”

Thea and Laurel are off discussing strategy and contacts, but Felicity is tucked into the hollow of Oliver’s arms and not listening. Sitting on his lap, perhaps mostly to keep her undercarriage sheltered between his legs as the dress rides up, she rests her cheek against the green leather over his shoulder. At some point, he’d put on his suit, her silly vigilante.

“Never again,” he murmurs in her ear, and she can feel the tension draining slowly out of his voice.

She doesn’t want to fight right now—and at the moment, “never again” sounds pretty good. But this is both of their lives, and this city belongs to both of them, and they’re both going to protect it with everything they have. And after she shows him that she’s okay, after she reassures herself, after Bob Mack is in a jail cell where maybe the old Hood can pay him a visit…

Then they’ll count this as a victory.

For now…

“About that bath,” she says with a sigh, and Oliver presses a kiss to her forehead, his hand sliding down her arm, driving away the ghost of Tom’s hand.

“A Bratva Captain, hmm?” he growls in her ear, low enough that only she can hear.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need that bath before I can use any of this as fantasy fuel,” she says, but then she curls her hand into the collar of his vest and yanks him closer. “But hold that thought.”

Thea rolls her eyes and flops back against the seat. “You guys are seriously ridiculous.”

But they aren’t listening.

And Laurel makes sure to turn off the earrings before they disappear together into the loft bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people asked for a smutty follow-up to The Professional… but I’m not sure anyone asked for THIS. Still, this is what you get… :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I have absolutely NO idea what I’m doing, so if you think potentially bad smut will ruin your enjoyment of the first chapter, then please look away and save yourselves. I‘m afraid there’s no hope for me, I’m already hellbound… Right now I am LITERALLY fanning myself with a frilly white hand-held fan because I don’t have good A/C in my place and I’m sweating to death because Satan is watching me try to write smut.

“Are we really going to do this?”

“Only if you want to.”

“But you want to,” she says, a little uncertainly. There’s no easy way to have this conversation, dancing around each other’s desires and their own, neither wanting to ask for too much or not enough.

“Felicity.” His fingers weave into her hair, cradling the back of her head, tilting it back so she’s staring up into his blue eyes. “I am _more_ than satisfied with our sex life. Don’t feel like-”

“See, now you sound like you’re rating a purchase on Amazon.” She gently pulls out of his grip, stepping back. “Our sex life shouldn’t be something you can discuss in the same terms as the pair of shoes you ordered. It should make you speechless.”

“I…” He frowns, and she can see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he searches for the right thing to say—or not say.

She takes pity on him with a smile. “You’re getting closer.”

It’s been a couple weeks since the “incident” (or _wildly successful mission_ , as she calls it), and they’ve finally made their way past shudders of memory and visions of Bob Mack’s leering face, through heated glances and suggestive innuendo, to actually doing this.

Felicity is a little surprised this idea appeals to Oliver; she knows he has a complicated relationship with the Bratva, and to his own role within it. But maybe it’s about claiming that part of himself in a new light, about reinterpreting shame and guilt into a naughty sexual fantasy that he can control, play with, and… enjoy.

She’s more surprised about her own twinges of desire over the idea—not about the Bratva Captain, of course, that’s obviously hot—but about her role in this. Though, as a modern woman who _really_ enjoys sex with her boyfriend in a world determined to shame her for that, she supposes she has her own issues to work through.

“Okay, let’s do it—and for once, it’s not an accidental innuendo, I definitely mean _do it_.” She can’t help the little frisson of nerves that quivers through her belly, but his eyes are heating as they search her face, making sure. “I mean, just so you’re fully aware, I’m not going to be good at it.”

“That is unequivocally untrue,” he says in a low voice as he leans in, scattering his breath across her lips.

“At the role playing—I’ve never done it before. And hey, save it for the game.” She shoves gently at his chest, hard and muscular beneath the thin cotton t-shirt, and he steps back with a smirk. “Okay, so do we have fake names or something? Whatever you’re into, I guess, but I just want to say it might be weird to say other names, you know, in the _moment._ I’m pretty sure you don’t want me calling out ‘Boris’ or whatever.”

“‘Boris?’”

“I figured you’d go with a Russian theme.”

He shakes his head, smiling, and she wonders if he already regrets this idea. “Our own names are fine.”

“Okay,” she says quietly, taking a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “Go somewhere so I can change, because I don’t think wearing _your_ t-shirt and yoga pants is going to cut it—and then I guess I’ll go outside to, you know, _arrive_. Might as well do this all the way.”

His hands gather fistfuls of loose fabric from the t-shirt she’s wearing, pulling her in towards him. “Felicity, we can stop this at any time. Just say the word.”

“Ethernet,” she says, then stumbles at the way he suddenly releases her. “No, no, I was just confirming it—not _saying_ it, I mean, I said it, but I wasn’t…”

His tension eases. “Alright—but I meant what I said— _any_ time. This is supposed to be for both of us, and if it’s not…” His thumb brushes over her cheek. “The only thing I need—the only thing I _want_ —is you. Just you. All of this is just…”

“There you go with the sentence fragments,” she says, and an affectionate smile spreads over her face. That’s how she knows he really wants this. “Alright, go, shoo. Your lady of the night needs to get ready for her shift.”

His eyes sear into hers, but he turns without a word and disappears into the guest bedroom. Thea’s room stands dark and empty, vacated for the night, with the only request being that they stay away from anywhere she eats.

Felicity finds her stomach is still churning once she’s standing outside the door to the loft, feet strapped into spiky heels, tight and revealing dress over her skimpiest underwear, hair tousled loosely and makeup a little heavier than normal, contacts in. Pausing, she thinks of all the ways she could mess this up—but then she realizes her neighbors could walk through the hallway at any time, so she draws in a long breath and knocks on the door.

“Come in,” says his voice in the room, deep and slightly more gruff than normal, and just like that a rush of heat floods down her body.

She’s planning her opening line, feeling like she should have done some research for this, as she opens the door—but she can’t help the little moan of, “Oh, God…” when she sees him sitting on the couch, in his brown jacket, expression tightly controlled as his intense gaze crawls over her entire body with a touch she swears she can _feel_.

Closing the door mostly by falling back against it, she swallows thickly. “Um, hello…”

He stares at her, saying nothing, as her heart starts to pound in her ears. His face is cut into rigid, angular lines that might read as harsh or disapproving if it weren’t for the molten heat of his eyes.

With slow, sauntering steps that make her aware of the liquid heat in her own body, she walks towards him, fingers playing around the hem of her dress that rasps against the skin of her upper thighs. The click of her heels softens as she reaches the rug beneath the couch, stopping beside the coffee table.

“So, what can I do for you tonight—I mean, _to_ you?” She opts not to use a sultry tone that might come off fake, so she just lowers her voice to a huskier register. 

For another long moment, he’s still just watching her, and she’s worried she’s supposed to be doing something differently. But then he points one finger at her dress. “Off,” he says.

“Oh… okay,” she breathes, a little hesitantly. She raises her hands to the zipper along the side of the strapless dress, but pauses, whispering slightly out of character, “Is this supposed to be like a dancing thing? ‘Cause, I mean, I need like some music or something—I’ve got that playlist I could put on, if that’s not, you know, breaking the illusion…”

One side of his lips twitches into a curl, but he pinches them between his teeth to maintain that unnervingly hot intensity, releasing them to say tightly, “Just… off.”

She nods, sliding the zipper down her side, peeling the dress down her waist and over her hips, until it falls into a heap onto the floor around her ankles. Leaving her in nothing but a black lacy thong and her high heels.

Oliver releases a breath, clearly expecting her to be wearing a strapless bra. She tosses her hair and thrusts out her breasts slightly, feeling a spark of pride that she can surprise him.

His voice catches, so that he has to clear his throat to say, “Turn.”

Pivoting on her toes, careful not to catch her shoes on the dress and trip—which yes, has happened to her several times before—she twists slowly around. She raises a hand to fidget with her hair just to give her trembling hands something to do, the other one trailing across her bare stomach.

Behind her, she hears him murmur something in Russian, and her thighs clench together involuntarily. At the movement, a rustle of fabric signals his weight shifting off the couch, and she knows he’s now standing right behind her, but she doesn’t turn back.

Her breath quickens, waiting through the long moment of silent stillness, feeling his presence hovering just out of reach.

Then his fingertips graze down the side of her nearly bare ass, jolting her forward as though branded. It takes everything in her not to turn around until he commands, trying not to squirm as his hand trails along the edges of her underwear, thumb slipping beneath the elastic as he slowly drags his palm around her hip. Still, the only part of him touching her is that one hand, while hers flutter around her shoulders, unsure where to land.

But when his fingertips slide into the front of her panties, she falls back against him, her shoulders pressed against the buttons of his jacket and her ass fitting into the cradle of his hips, snug against his erection pushing back.

With a shaky moan, she tries to pull away with a half-whispered apology, but his hand flattens over her hip, holding her there as his other hand skims up her ribcage. She can feel his breath like smoke spilling down over her collarbone, the rasp of his stubble against her ear as he lingers with his head bent over her. Twisting her face slightly to the side, she can see his eyes are closed.

Then he pulls abruptly away, hands ripped out of her underwear and away from her body, leaving cold air to slither up her bare back.

“Bedroom,” he says roughly. “Now.”

This time, when she goes to take a step, she has forgotten completely about the dress tangled around her feet, so she stumbles to the side before his hand clenches around her arm and holds her steady. Finding her footing, she turns to look at him, but he snatches his hand off her skin like it burns and doesn’t meet her gaze, jerking his chin towards the bedroom door. He mutters a word in Russian, presumably repeating the order, and God, this should _not_ be this hot.

On slightly wobbly legs, she crosses the apartment, each click of her high heels on the hardwood floor echoing in her ears. But it’s his steps, the heavy tread of his boots in a slow, deliberate trail behind her, that has her biting her bottom lip once she’s inside their room. Without turning around, she hears him close the door behind her, and her stomach twists with anticipation.

He spins her around, hands gripping her waist as he hauls her against him, her breasts flattened against the brown cloth. She pushes onto her tiptoes to reach up and kiss him—but before her lips reach his, one of his hands leaps up to grab her chin, holding her away as his thumb jerks roughly across her bottom lip, probably smearing her lipstick over her cheek.

“Oh, right, there’s, like, a no kissing thing, right?” she mutters, her jaw still held in his tight grasp. When he says nothing, his expression harsh, she can’t help squirming against him, his other hand on the small of her back holding her body against his. “Should I feel bad that this is turning me on so much? I mean, is it saying something about the modern independent woman or the commodification of sex or the-”

His thumb returns to her mouth, tipping in and catching on the bottom row of her teeth, stopping her mid-word. “I’m not paying you to talk.”

Her jaw drops slightly, and he can feel it beneath his thumb, and she sees his eyes suddenly break character. They search across her face, waiting for the signal that he went too far, but she just closes her teeth onto the top of his thumbnail—and they blaze again with heat.

Scraping her teeth across the tip as she pulls back, she says, “What would you rather I be doing with my mouth, then?”

He just growls, letting her step away from him, and then he says in a low, rumbling voice, “Get on the bed. On your back.”

She crawls backwards onto the duvet, wondering if she should say something about peeling it back to get on the sheets instead since this thing is a bitch to wash, but that would definitely break the taut, scorching atmosphere they’ve built. As she settles onto her elbows, he strips off his jacket and t-shirt in rough, wrenching motions.

For a moment, she wonders if they’re just going to _do this_ , no foreplay, and the thought is kind of hot. She’s more than ready, her panties soaked against her, and she watches him step up to the edge of the bed still in his (looking more and more uncomfortable) jeans. He stares down at her splayed body, while she tries not to writhe in the slight discomfort of his intense scrutiny.

His hands lunge forward, ripping her thong down her thighs, somehow leaving it still intact when he tosses it onto the floor. She waits for him to unbuckle her shoes when his hands skim around her ankles, but then he’s grabbing hold of her legs and dragging her to the edge, tossing her knees over his shoulders as he kneels before her.

When his mouth settles against her, parting her as his tongue slides along her wet, swollen flesh, she cries out and grabs hold of the duvet, back bowing. He’s not gentle, not easing her into it, fingers invading her as his teeth tease and threaten.

But as she gasps, a thought occurs to her. “Do people really… do this with… prostitutes?” she asks between panting breaths. “I mean, they must, I know some guys… really like it… but I would think…”

Oliver turns and sinks his teeth into her inner thigh, scolding her, hard enough to jolt her up onto her elbows. Part of her flushes with a strange heat at the spark of pain, something he can no doubt feel around his fingers, but the other part can’t help frowning down at him.

She huffs out an angry breath. “I’m _sorry_ , you got the chatty hooker—no refunds!”

His face breaks into a smile he clearly can’t help, and his forehead falls forward against his hip as he expels a laugh. Then he turns, brushing a tender kiss against the teeth marks fading into her skin, and murmurs, “ _Laskovaya moya_.”

And then he returns to her center, tongue swirling around her clit, as his fingers curl deeper into her and press against that one spot like it’s the reset button on her entire body.

“Oh, _God_ ,” she groans, hips thrusting helplessly, her heels digging into his broad back as her legs curl up. Within moments, she’s coming, because he really is that good, and she almost says that she should be paying _him,_ if she could form words through her keening cries.

Once she’s back in her own body, she sighs deeply, heart pounding and ears ringing, body limp and slick with sweat on the duvet she’s going to have to take, red-faced, to the dry cleaners. He gives her time, dragging kisses down the insides of her thighs as he pulls slowly back.

Then he stands, zipper straining around the impressive bulge that he’s supposedly ‘paying’ her to address, arms hanging at his side. The Bratva tattoo stands out on his glistening chest.

“Turn around,” he says, slightly breathless himself. “On your knees.”

Her limbs still quiver slightly as she follows his command, rolling onto her hands and knees and trying not to feel too self-conscious as he stands between her spread feet, knowing where his gaze is undoubtedly fixed. His hands settle on either side of her hips, and then his lips are trailing down her lower spine to drift across the curves of her ass. He’s muttering in Russian, thumbs sliding down to stroke across the soft skin at the very top of her thighs.

As his steaming breath spills rolling syllables over her, she dips her head forward. “I should have rigged  some translation software for this,” she mumbles to herself. When he’s still going on, composing some sort of Russian ode to her ass, she lifts her head and looks back over her shoulder. “Move it along back there, Tolstoy.”

And then his hand smacks across her ass, the slap reverberating through the room, along with her startled yelp.

“Did you just-?” she starts, but he hauls her up and back against his bare chest, the rasp of scars across her shoulder blades as he slams her hips against the hard ridge still bound by his jeans.

“For tonight, I own you,” he growls in her ear, as one hand slides around to seize hold of the butt cheek he just slapped. “Especially this.”

She should slap him back, she tells herself, but instead her head drops back onto his shoulder as she expels a breath. His head bows forward, and she waits for a bite or snarl or some other he-man declaration…

But he presses a gentle kiss against _their_ spot, just beneath her ear, and she whimpers.

Felicity also suddenly understands role play, because this is still Oliver—and yet, they can be someone else, _something_ else, all within the safety of each other’s arms. All of the naughty thoughts she shoves into a box in the dark corner of her mind can be peeked at and teased out between them without shame or judgment, always trusting that they won’t let each other go too far.

So she gives into it.

“All yours, big guy,” she says as she rubs back against him, the scrape of denim tingling across her damp flesh, hearing the grunt of satisfaction in his throat.

Except, it’s _her_ , so the thought that pops suddenly into her mind is simultaneously spilling out of her mouth.

“But, you know, not like _that_ , right? I feel like that would be several hundred dollars extra, or something—we never said how much I cost, so I don’t know if that’s a reasonable estimate or-”

“ _Felicity_ ,” Oliver groans with exasperation as he leans his forehead into her hair.

“I’m sorry—I’m trying to do sexy banter but I just think we should have made character profiles.”

She can feel the smile he presses against her ear, as he murmurs softly to her, “I love you so fucking much.”

And she loves him too, so much that the sharp pang of tender affection almost distracts her from trying to get back in the dirty sexy mindset. But it only makes her more determined to show him a good time, like a classy hooker would.

So she reaches back, caresses a hand over the erection that must be painful by now, and says, “So when are you going to fuck me, Captain?”

The sound that explodes from his throat rattles through her bones, and his hands on her rib cage shove her forward as he steps back, though it’s a gentle nudge compared to what those muscular arms are capable of. She falls forward onto her stomach with more momentum than his push warranted, tumbling onto her stomach and curling her back, lifting her feet to kick her heels up into the air behind her. He’s kicking off his boots with a force that may dent the walls, tearing off his jeans with jerky motions.

Before she can do or say anything else, he’s climbing onto the bed as his hands seize hold of her hips, and then he’s sliding into her, thick and hard. She cries out, the sound melting into a gasping moan as he starts thrusting, his skin slapping against hers as he builds to a rough, rapid pace far more quickly than he ever has before. She’s scrambling to keep up, fingers clenching into the duvet, mouth hanging open as she pushes her forehead into the bed.

He’s rougher than usual, and she _likes_ it—not for every time, but for right now, _fuck yes…_  One hand slides down to glide calloused fingertips around her clit in a sloppy rhythm, dragging her towards her orgasm with a merciless onslaught of sensation. His body bends over her back, rigid abs tensing against her lower back with each thrust.

“Oh God… oh God… Oliver— _don’t stop_ ,” she moans out, words tumbling together until she might as well be speaking Russian.

His free hand fists into the fabric beside her head, and her hand flails out to catch it, intertwining her fingers over his. Too intimate for their roles, perhaps, but his thumb reaches up to snag hers and pull it into his grasp, and his forehead has fallen forward against the back of her neck as his grunts get louder and desperate between clenched teeth.

“Oh, God, _yes_ ,” she nearly sobs, head thrown back, nearly colliding with his if he hadn’t twisted to the side to slide hot, whiskery kisses across her neck.

And then she’s coming, soundlessly other than the panting breaths, squeezing hard around Oliver’s cock until he too is spilling out of his skin with a yelled, _“Fuck!_ ”

When his thrusts slow to the last twitches inside her, she falls forward into the plush bedding, still catching her breath. He’s pulled out of her, but he flops over onto his side next to her, the hand nearly trapped beneath her hips gliding around to skim up and down her back through the slick of sweat cooling along her spine.

The harsh lines of his face have melted to drowsy contentment, and she can’t help grinning at him through the veil of her hair. He opens his eyes, the blue soft and warm as he gazes at her like she’s made of stars.

“Is now when you take a customer satisfaction survey?” she says with a playful smirk. “You know, 10/10, would eat here again?”

He tugs her against him, growling wordlessly against her neck.

She sighs happily. “Now that’s more like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants to chat about Arrow and Alias--because I have so many thoughts and ideas about both and how they go together--feel free to message me on Tumblr! I'm "jsevick" there too. :D 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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